


The acclimation and healing of Compiler

by pinkparasol



Series: Recompile AU [2]
Category: Tron (1982), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Evolution, Tron: Legacy (2010), Tron: Uprising
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Identity Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stockholm Syndrome, codependancy, learning to deal with all of these issues, life after clu and all the problems that entails, user/program tensions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 14:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12819798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkparasol/pseuds/pinkparasol
Summary: A pet user isn't a pet user anymore, but Compiler can't be fully Sam either. Add in a Grid in turmoil and ever evolving after Clu's demise and there isn't much time to find a new way to find and fit a role that will allow him to be on this grid. Nothing can go smoothly and trust is rare on a system that has to learn what it means to be a Free System once again.





	1. The Sea of Turmoil

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, a sequel to the first series of ficlets in the Recompiler verse. This work will features stories for everything that happens after chapter 43 of the first work. 
> 
> Once again this will not be a straight point A to point B type of story. Instead it is basically just a bunch of one shots that all connect and are based in the Recompiler Universe. This also means that some of the 'chapters' will not be in order timeline wise and I am sorry for any confusion this may cause.

The Sea seemed like some mocking analogy of his own internal coding and just how horribly twisted it was in it’s fragmented and altered ways. Learning how it had been poisoned had only reinforced that view as he looped and suppressed memories and emotions behind walls and filters in order to not crash into a mess in whatever dark corner he had been hiding in at the time.

A lot of those that had been there when he had became a pet user would say he was just as poisoned and lost as that sea.

Yet, now he perched high on a jagged cliff top and watched the distant figures of a user and several programs standing and scanning said sea. His head tilted at an angle common in programs who are trying to process something that their routines have not exactly encountered before. It’s daunting and illogical, something no one thinks can be solved. While those who remembered the Purge and Abraxas shy away, wanting nothing to do with this project and what could possibly happen if it succeeds. Anon had all but kidnapped Quorra for a long term grid bug hunting excursion when whispers of this had first began, and now both rarely remain still long enough for someone to pull them into a conversation about such. The hurt and loneliness that coiled and skittered around and under their normal hum of activity had felt like a dull pressure of a storm behind his eyelids as they tried and failed not to focus on what he was now watching in curiosity.

He never brought it up to them but he recalled that distant memory when he was a prisoner of war and Quorra had spoke in halting painful tones of everything Clu had done, and spoke in general terms of what happened to make her the last ISO on the grid. He also didn’t dig when a designation would flit between the two not realizing he was still instinctively listening in to any and all pings and channels of communication if not heavily encrypted as he had been taught to do.

The part of him that was Sam worried that they were going to be upset when it didn’t go the way they hoped in reclaiming this piece of the Grid Clu had taken fully with his actions. The rest of him just shook his head and scoffed as the loyal parts of Compiler just felt like they were being wasteful of resources in trying to undo such. After all his SysAdmin had created that virus, infected such a large part of the system with it and controlled it in such a way to have it remain in said sea. He was almost angry at them for erasing even more of Clu from the system so it seemed as if he never existed. Even though he knew in some ways that this at least needed to be fixed or deleted to keep the Grid healthy and functional when all of the new upgrades were slowly brought over from the User’s side.

The only comfort to those parts of his code was that _Rinzler_ Tron had made certain that no one thought to touch the obelisk that loomed alone and on a stretch of the shore that few would willingly attempt to reach. If nothing else this, and they would remain as physical reminders of what had happened.

He took one last look at churning waves and the figures with defiance in their posture and slunk away


	2. Back Step and Knowing Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you can't help but be what you once were, and sometimes someone understands and lets such happen.

ZackAttack had said that users called such a slide back, a moment when stress was too much and it was easier and calming to return to habits that you were actually trying to break.

The users expected such from him when he started to actively change and self repair, to actively remember those hazy bits of images and sound of a place that felt less and less real to him as time went on. They just smile or gave pained looks and told him it was okay and not to give up. As if enough words would make the snarled and tangled lines smooth out and the painful errors that skittered like static shocks through his whole being to lessen and stop being so code deep it made his joints ache sometimes. They clung to some hope that if they allowed him these ‘setbacks’ he would fight harder to be what they expected him to be.

He found it a waste of time to argue with them on that point or make them understand he would never be fully Sam again, despite all of this.

He didn’t do it out of some feeling of wanting to be Sam_Flynn again, nor out of obligation to those that he now had vague memories of being family to him. It wasn’t even done in order to ‘free himself’ of Clu’s influence and rewrites. He just wanted to be deemed good enough that he could slink away and fix and tweak the code around him into something workable and viable, to get lost in the one thing that didn’t hurt him or distress him when everything was said and done, and wouldn’t that cause even more problems if they realize just how much he just wanted them to leave him alone.

He also never asked them if they thought a program could suffer from such as well.

Mostly out of that deep and throbbing bruise of imprinted and nurtured loyalty when sometimes he would look up from within the dark and ruined sections of the city to feel teeth hurting static, hear the tick whirr that had sent many scattering in fear not that long ago, and catch a glimpse of red circuitry and mirrored helm almost gleefully and viciously ending a grid bug that had crept in from the outlands. Only to lose sight of the figure as if it was a glitched memory if not for the fading voxels of what had been derezzed. That bruise kept him silent and acting dumb when crossing paths with blue circuits and programs crowding and gawking at the efficient, but still personable legend that was Tron. 

Pretending such never happened made it easier to ignore the flare of _hurt, betrayal, sadness,_ that would always cycle and twist like a cry because it still wasn’t fully his Rinzler in those moments. Much like how when he follows and moves the way he had done before did not make him fully Clu’s pet user. The jagged pieces didn’t fit as they used to, the alliance and backstabbing that ebbed and flowed with Clu’s temper, the training sessions that was more beat up the user. Even the certainty that if either became a liability the other would finish them off at the orders Clu. It horrified the few he had finally been coaxed into explaining such too, that he felt safer knowing such an execution order hung over his head then this uncertain turmoil where he didn’t know fully who or what may decide he was too much of a threat to remain.

The knowing eyes and the smile that could be nothing else but gratitude, thanks, and worry for him also meant that at times he avoided Yori as if his very life depended on it.

Sometimes he wondered if it was his life or something else he was frightened for regarding the only program that seemed to understand so much better than even those who had lived under Clu’s reign.


	3. Reliving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories are dangerous things if you're not careful.

Memories were tricky when it came to rebuilding or just putting them in the folder they belonged to. Sometimes you had to immerse yourself into it in order to figure out what was wrong with it or where it actually belongs. Other times it would boot up and slowly take over your functions in such a way you don’t realize it happened until it finally let you go.

_It’s dark, no lights from the city reach this far down and the gloom seems to devour the dim glow of his circuits. He can’t brighten them out of fear of discovery and to conserve energy in case he needs that small bit of energy to build something that would keep him alive just that little bit longer. The hum of the grid’s base code is both a comfort and worry as it throbs slowly in counterpoint to his faster paced heartbeat in the back of his skull._

_Movement and he stills. Desperately trying to become just another piece of the destroyed archive he had fallen into. Eyes desperately trying to find a flicker of color to tell him who exactly is stalking him through the maze like openings and crawlspaces. Rebel or Loyalist? Which will be more dangerous to run into him at the moment?_

_‘Above.’_

_Suddenly he’s motion twisting and tumbling away before the whirr of a disk activating even registers both audio and visually as his own comes up to block. Can’t code anything large, too much instability would derezz them both if he panics too much and uses code keeping what’s left of the building up. Dodge, and using his smaller mass compared to the other program still almost invisible to visual and scans, but not fully because he is, was, Clu’s pet user and he can’t be fully fooled by such due to such. The other feels so sluggishly slow compared to the almost instantaneous strikes and swipes of Rinzler when he finally got tired of him and ended his attempts to keep up in those one sided spars._

_‘Where?’_

_He’s still being herded, pushed because he’s still so ill equipped to follow and keep up with those who have spent hundreds of cycle after cycle fighting with disks and in such environments. It doesn’t help deep down below the instructions of Clu and need to survive is that feeling of hesitation at the mere thought of ending this fight brutally, quickly, and on purpose._

_A wild swing and his disk is-_

-wrist held securely but not painfully and a dark helmet reflects pale face and blown, glittering pupils. It’s the wrong shape his mind screeches. All smooth planes and rounded edges reflected blue. Not faceted planes meshed in an angled point that’s made to be streamlined and give just that bit more of an edge due to less resistance while moving.

**[Desist]**

The ping forceful enough to cause fingers to go lax and disk to deactivate as it falls towards the ground. Before caught in the other hand of the other, Anon, and he can only go limp as he delves back into his own code and mind to wall that memory off one more time.

He says nothing about it, and Anon just quietly returns his disk before turning back to the monitor he had been watching before, as if he hadn’t stopped the one next to him from unknowingly disking him in the side of said helmet.

It’s never talked about, just like no one talks about those times when he codes the other or someone else to a wall until they cycle back up from whatever memory fragment had ensnared them briefly.


End file.
